Slashdot Mirror
Online Purchases Can Give You Away
Abhishek writes "New Scientist reports that Retailers could guess your age, sex, birthday and wedding anniversary simply from the types of gifts purchased for you online and their timing, according to a patent granted to online retail giant, Amazon.
The information could be used to remind your loved ones of an impending special occasion and offer gift suggestions.
Currently Amazon makes personalised suggestions to customers based on previous purchases by that customer, previous web pages browsed and comparisons between customers who have bought similar products. But the company may vastly increase its predictive capability in the future."
Demographics can be reversed!
... that if it's from a man it's probably being given/ordered late?
Amazon.com: "It's time to purchase Rocco's true anal stories 29!"
Wife: "WTF?"
Your purchases of:
1. Childrens clothing (young female)
2. Childrens Videos (Mecha fighting robots IV)
3. 'Fairy' Wand
4. 'Young Princess' wings and headband.
Indicate that you are a 40yr old Male, Single... probably naked right now...
If someone buys a casket for you, will they stop spamming you ?
What keeps me going is my inertia.
Dear short, fat, balding, over-the-hill, poorly-dressed, divorced and lonely couch-potato. We have some wonderful discounts to fit in with your special life-style....
Table-ized A.I.
If you read the article a little deeper, the general idea is that the software system described is used to guess the purchasing habits of friends and family based on stereotypes derived from information gathered from these messages.
This is no different than someone assuming that if you are some random black guy who happens to like rap music that if you send a message to another friend with the keyword "rap" that it assumes that the recipient of that message must also like rap music.
When marketroids are allowed to segment human beings into every imaginable stereotypical group they can think of, it may be useful for making those advertising dollars a little more efficient, but the cost to society is huge in that people stop sharing similarities as they are encouraged to go retreat to their own little islands of likeminded thinkers.
It is almost like politics in America right now, where pollsters and political pundits have managed to reprogram much of the American electorate into foolishly believing that they are part of some narrowly defined group like the "religious right", or "extreme left" or that they are a "Reagan Republican" or a "NASCAR Dad".
So, instead of society being encouraged to try to create art, ideas, products, services, government programs, etc. which try to serve the public good in a general way, the only thing you see nowadays is ridiculous levels of customization in everything around us that divide people rather than unite them.
It is like people can now go to whatever news outlet they want whether it be the Communist Broadcasting Service or Fox News not to get an objective view on what goes on around the world, but rather to hear news with a distinct political spin to make themselves feel better about "being right" when it comes to their position on any given issue.
This is just another step in the corporatization of America where people voluntarily give up their freedom and rational minds by being fooled into believing that allowing corporations to create a virtual caste system through modern marketing methods is actually a good thing.
I'm buying Christmas cards tomorrow....
...that'll throw them off my trail...
I had a similar experience with HP. Somehow I got subscribed to a newsletter from visiting their website. It was mostly worthless, but I'd scan them every once in a while to keep up with their products and things.
After a time the newsletter was re-vamped, and I got something saying they would now be suggesting articles and things to based on my "preferences". Somehow I remember it was an exciting new HP AI technology they were testing, and HP would be offering it to their business customers.
At first, the suggested articles weren't very "personalized" and wading through a bunch of suggested articles that seemed to have nothing to do with my interests made me want to unsubscribe.
All of a sudden, though, I began getting suggested articles like "Don't you think Linux sucks? Click here to read more" that would actually link to articles on the HP website talking about how Windows had a better ROI or something. Although the articles were real, the "suggestions" that pointed to the articles were obviously computer generated or pieced together from a list of pre-generated phrases.
Needless to say, I've since unsubscribed to this most unhelpful service. I'd like to take this opportunity to give an obligatory "fuck you, Carly".
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"